Running and building your own online business can be very rewarding, but at times it can also be extremely challenging. Luckily, there is a lot of advice and lots of great resources to help you make your business dream come true. Here is a list of the best resources that I use most of the time to help build my online business.

These resources will help you learn how to start your business from scratch, help you find great ideas and help you stay motivated and make your business successful.

Entrepreneurs Journey

Entrepreneurs Journey – is a blog (weblog) website aimed at those interested in Internet business and Blogging. Entrepreneurs Journey provides useful content and interviews from entrepreneurs from around the world.

The Warrior Forum

Warrior Forum – Is the best place to learn about internet marketing, ebook selling and home based business.

Entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneur.com – Great content on how to start an online business, also a great place to network with entrepreneurs just like you.

Think Big Magazine

Think Big Magazine – is a free online business magazine which shares stories that inspire and motivate people.

Meet Up

Meet Up – This is a great place to meet like minded entrepreneurs and business owners, which can help form mastermind groups, plan meetings and form offline clubs in local communities around the world.

Mixergy

Mixergy – Mixergy is where the ambitious learn from a mix of experienced mentors. Mixergy holds events were business people take some time out of their schedules to help teach others what they learned from their own experiences.

startups – uk based

startups – Startups.co.uk is the number one leading source of information for UK entrepreneurs. Whether you are a budding entrepreneur ready to start a business for the first time or you are an established entrepreneur looking to do it a second time, Startups.co.uk have all the news and information you need to get your small business starting on the right foot.

Other links to resources

Top Social Networks for entrepreneurs: visit website

101 Useful Resources for Online Entrepreneurs: visit website

10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs: visit website

I hope you have found this post useful, let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Lee McIntyre is a young and successful internet marketer from the UK who makes his living running a six figure per month online business and is teaching others how to do the same.

Lee McIntyre’s business revolves around selling information products online and offline. He does business with the  belief that you will be more successful if you truly put the customer first and are honest in all your dealings.

In this interview Lee McIntyre reveals how he runs his business all the way through to outsourcing, traffic generation and making money.

If you would like to learn how to run a successful online business  download this free interview right now and listen to what Lee McIntyre has to say.

DOWNLOAD FREE MP3 INTERVIEW

To find out more about Lee McIntyre: visit website

Anyway I hope you enjoy the interview, I would love to hear your comments, please leave them below once you have listened to the interview.

Web 2.0 sites like Twitter, Squidoo, Facebook etc, plays a big part in your search engine optimization efforts. Submitting your website and RSS feed to Web 2.0 sites is a great way to drive traffic to your website and gain much needed backlinks.

The truth of some of the big sites like Hubpages is that the more Internet marketers abuse their system with promotions and affiliate links the more, Google starts devaluing links and content on those sites. That why it is important to stay one step ahead and keep finding new Web 2.0 sites that are rising up in popularity.

A great place to find new and emerging Web 2.0 sites is at www.go2web20.net

You know the saying “Everyone has at least one good book in them”. Which I think is true!!! The internet has opened the doors to would be writers to enable them to self publish their work. Gone are the days were you had to appoach offline publishers, begging them to read your work and publish it, ok not quite gone!!!

Self publishing is a great way to get exposure, connect with fans, and make more money with your written words. There are loads of self-publishing sites out there ready to take your master piece, to share to the world. Who knows you could be the next Stephen King or J.K.Rowling…

I am going to share with you self publishing sites I have used and personally think is worth trying.

Issuu

Issuu – is very cool, its for online publications where you can see the digital versions of print magazines, catalogues, and documents. This site is more for professional publishers than for individual users. Issuu also allows you to embed your publications on your site.

Yudu

Yudu – produces digital versions of your brochure, catalogue, newsletter or magazine. Yudu also allows you to add multimedia elements such as video, hyperlinks and sound to your publications.

Lulu

Lulu – is great, lets you publish and sell print-on-demand books, e-books, online music, CD/DVD’s, software, artwork and calendars.

Scribd

Scribd – Alot of small businesses uses this site to share documents and promotional material. Scribd is the world’s largest document sharing community. Visited by 17 million people per month.

here are some more publishing sites:
Sites to share documents online
10 self publishing sites

In the last post I talked about The 6 key points you need to be a aware of when creating a logo for your business. Now am going to talk about how businesses advertise and the consumers perception of your advertising.

What is advertising?

IPA says advertising is “the means of providing the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects at the lowest possible cost”

Kotler and Armstrong thinks “advertising is a paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines and television”

I personally think its both definitions..what do you think?

Check out some advertisements below that are creative and clever..see what the key persuasive selling messages are.

What determines the key advertising messages?

The advertising message is often more important than the amount spent. The advertising message must be carefully targeted to impact the target customer audience. A successful advertising message should have the following characteristics:

Meaningful- customers should find the message relevant
Distinctive – capture the customers attention
Believable – which is hard too do since most consumers doubt the true authenticity of an advertisement

What makes a consumer take action?

In advertisements, action words in present tense are used and visual imagery is use to illustrate that action. Also Important benefits to the consumer is highlighted in the advertisment, that sometimes will make a consumer want to take action, especially if they know they will get alot of value from it.

Advertisers also like to use persuasive techniques to play on consumers emotions such as fear, guilt, insecurity, shock and even humour.

I hope you have found this post useful, let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.